


omnes voluntates meas

by kitseybarbours



Category: Gladiator (2000)
Genre: Backstory, Canon Dialogue, F/M, M/M, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-11 02:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5609788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitseybarbours/pseuds/kitseybarbours
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Are we so different, you and I?</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	omnes voluntates meas

**Author's Note:**

> Title is "all my desires" in (Google Translate) Latin, from Commodus' line "All my desires are splitting my head into pieces."

*

One summer. Capri.

A summer like so many others. Every year for as long as you can remember, you have come to the villa on the island, the three of you: you, Commodus; your sister, Lucilla; and your father’s ward, Maximus. Every summer, more or less the same: all day, the salt and sun on your skin; you boys shout and laugh and wrestle in the sand while Lucilla watches from the shade. Every year, every summer day, the same. You have been happy here.

This year will be different, though you do not know it yet.

This year, you, Commodus, are sixteen. Maximus and Lucilla are eighteen: he is a man, she a beautiful woman. You don’t know when they grew up and left you behind. This year will be different.

*

You and Maximus fight with wooden swords on the beach. Once, these were driftwood pieces, or springy green branches; but you are older now. You strike harder now, and he strikes harder back. Lucilla watches, wary. She drapes her silk scarf, lightly scented with amber perfume, around the victor’s shoulders, and drops a kiss on his cheek. The victor is usually Maximus. This is nothing new.

What is new is the ugly feeling in your stomach as she presses her lips to his skin, his Spanish skin. It is dark and scarred; her lips are pure, divine. _He does not deserve her._

You do not like where your thoughts are going. You shout and tackle him again, crying _back to the game, Maximus, hand-to-hand this time!_ You are lucky he laughs. The silk scarf gets torn and dirtied and Lucilla cries out, but she is laughing too. You fight for her love; why would she not be pleased with that?

*

The summer goes on. Wooden swords are exchanged for real ones, under the watchful eye of your father’s men. You are good: Maximus is better. He takes on three of the men at once, stripped to the waist in the olive grove, striking and parrying, blades clashing in the morning light. You watch from the shade of a tree. He does not see you, and then he does. He pauses, looks directly at you; you shrink back, and he holds your gaze. He hefts his sword, shifts his grip. It is a challenge you do not want to accept. You open your mouth to say something, to make some excuse, but you come up with nothing, and stand gaping like a fish.

_Idiot._

You hear him laughing as you turn away and slink back inside, shame flushing your cheeks. The noise of the blades starts up again, harsh and metallic. It taunts you. You have never been so ashamed.

*

The days grow hotter. The nights, too. You toss and turn for hours, listening to the waves and praying for sleep. On the pallet next to yours, Maximus’ chest rises steadily, falls. You envy him.

One of these nights you wake him. “Maximus,” you say, your voice, newly changed, foreign in the heavy air. “Maximus.” You shake his arm and he sits bolt upright, poised as if expecting an attack. You draw back, startled. His vision clears and he frowns at you.

“Commodus. What is it?”

His clear annoyance makes you feel foolish, a child.

“I just — it’s nothing. I couldn’t sleep.”

He scoffs. “Afraid of the dark?”

You are hurt. “No.” You don’t sound convincing, even to yourself.

He sits up. Like you, he is bare-chested; unlike you, he is solidly muscular, already sporting battle scars. He sleeps under a thin blanket, even in this heat: _He is a Spaniard,_ you think absently. _That must be it._

“Then what do you want?” His voice is flat.

You don’t know. You look at him, and you think of your sister’s lips on his cheek. You think of how, when they think you aren’t looking, they will clasp hands for a moment, or step close to whisper; Lucilla will laugh her low laugh and stroke the inside of his wrist.

You think of them, and it hurts you, and the ugliness constricts your chest again. You stare at him. You have nothing to say.

You kiss him before you can think any more.

He is startled: he stiffens. But then he kisses back.

Before you know it you are a tangle of limbs, his weight atop you; you wonder with a sick stab of jealousy if he has ever kissed your sister like this.

Later, he moves to leave. You don’t know where he will go: you know only that you cannot stand the thought of being alone. “Stay with me?” you ask in a rush, and you wince again at how foolish you sound. You regret the words the instant they fall from your lips.

He only laughs, once, a short humourless bark, and he leaves you. He says nothing; there is nothing to say.

*

You don’t know what you want. You want him, or you want her, or both, or something — you _want_ , and you can have neither, nothing. You think you will go mad with it. Two more of those sleepless nights come to pass, but you know it is only because you are there. You hear him say her name in his sleep.

He goes to her in the night, now. You pretend to sleep but you see him as he leaves; you hear him return, much later, no matter how quiet he tries to be. You think he does not care if you know, and you are right.

You see them at breakfast in the morning: the way Maximus offers Lucilla a gentle “Good morning,” the way she averts her eyes with a smile. It is as if you are not even there.

*

Your father loves him. When he visits the villa, he greets Maximus first with a great joyful outcry, praising how strong he has grown, how tall, though it is barely three months since he saw him last, before he left on yet another campaign. You wonder if, had your father been home more and not always fighting his endless wars, he would love you more.

He kisses Lucilla next; he exclaims over her beauty, which, in truth, seems to increase every day. He tells her how much she is growing to look like her mother, your mother, and her skin goes delicately pink with pride.

He greets you last. You are not so tall as Maximus, and nowhere near as strong. You have but the barest fuzz of stubble where Maximus is growing a full beard, a man’s beard. You are, in all things, less than he. You know it, and he knows it, and your father the emperor knows it, and it shows. There is a coldness in him when he looks at you. It is like you are not even his son at all.

*

The summer ends. Maximus will go back to Spain for the first time in years; though he does not want to leave Lucilla, his eyes are lively and he is ready to be home again. She kisses him with tears in her eyes when they are parted. There is talk of marriage: your father approves. You feel sick.

When Maximus goes, he claps a hand on your shoulder, looking down at you, blocking the sun.

“Commodus.”

He says your name once and it is almost an apology, and then he is gone. You pray never to see him again.

*

It is not to be so: you receive word that Maximus will come back in the winter — come to Rome, to marry Lucilla. She is overjoyed; she exclaims and kisses your father’s cheeks in glee when she hears, and you know she counts the days til he is here again.

(You hate that you are counting too).

*

But then late in the autumn Lucius Verus, your father’s co-emperor, asks for Lucilla’s hand in marriage. It would be folly to refuse; you know it, and your father knows it, and Lucilla knows it most of all. She marries him with her head held bravely high and word is sent to Maximus; and you are sure, now, that you will never see him again. Your fate along with your sister’s is sealed with her marriage vow.

Your prayers have been answered after all. Why, then, do you still feel you are cursed?

*

You are a consul now, and you hate the job, the dreary business of state. Lucilla is an _Augusta,_ an empress, and busy all the time — but her duties are social, familial, and she has spoken to you often of how she longs to sit in on Senate meetings, to discuss and engage in the politics of Rome.

You joke that she may have your post —  _take it, if you want it so badly! —_ but you see from the frown on your father’s face that, in truth, he would indeed prefer the job were hers. In this, like everything else, you have failed him.

*

Lucilla bears three children to Lucius Verus: Aurelia, Plautia and Lucius, named for his father. You feel a sick joy in knowing that she will never have a baby Maximus to dandle on her knee, who would gaze on you with eyes as dark and knowing as his father’s.

Your joy turns sour in your stomach when she loses the girls, first, and then her husband, and the trappings of her post as Empress; and Lucilla grows thin and sad and pale, dressed in widow’s weeds and stripped of her fine houses and lovely things; but she comes to you in her sorrow, and you comfort her as a brother should, and you think in triumph _She is mine again._

*

Germania, winter.

Your father has summoned you and your sister. You know he is dying: you are eager, waiting in the wings. Finally, you will have your chance; you will be something, someone _more._ His disappointment will no longer cast its shadow over you.

You arrive at the battlefield, you go to greet him. “Have I missed the battle?” you joke, opening your arms to your father, kissing both his cheeks with exaggerated mirth. And then out of the corner of your eye, you spy him — Maximus, unmistakeable. Your heart gives a jolt. You keep your composure. _How?_

“You’ve missed the war,” your father tells you, flat. Your jaw tightens.

He beckons Maximus. You lay eyes on him, properly, for the first time in years, still not wanting to believe that he is here. He is older now, of course; still young, but grizzled and greying already: war has aged him. There is a deadened longing in his eyes. He has more battle scars.

You greet him as an equal —  _brother, old friend —_  but you are not equals, and never have been. This time, however, it is you who has the upper hand. You have grown tall and strong and handsome at last. You are decked in royal blue and gold; his armour is flecked with filth and blood. You feel a triumph: he may have won the battle, but it is _you_ who is victorious at last.

*

Your triumph is short-lived. You tell your father you will sacrifice a hundred bulls in honour of his victory: he tells you to honour Maximus instead. The soldiers laugh. The hard line of Maximus’ unsmiling mouth changes to a cruel and barely perceptible smirk. You feel your face grow hot; you are back on Capri, with the creeping vines on white stucco and the blue hush of the waves on those endless sleepless nights. You are young again and always inferior; you are reminded that your father thinks you unworthy, and the old jealous rage fills you up again and threatens to consume you.

*

You take him to Lucilla. You know you have to. You hate it.

She looks truly happy for the first time since her husband died. She greets him cordially, ever composed, introduces her son and keeps her tone cool and light. But you can see the joy in her eyes, the same joy that sparked there on those mornings on Capri when you knew he had gone to her. It is an ugly thing to seethe at another’s gladness _(especially hers, Lucilla’s, your beautiful sister who has not smiled for so long)_ , but you cannot abide it. You who were her only joy in those first dark days of widowhood, you who made her laugh and held her when she cried — you are invisible again, and he has taken your place.

*

You are restless: you feel Maximus’ presence as acutely as if he stood behind you, breathing down your neck. You see him striding around the camp, greeting his soldiers like brothers: they clasp his hand and kiss him with reverence: “General. General.” It infuriates you.

You call your men to you, take out your sword, strip off your warm clothing and resist shivering as the snow falls. Now, it is _you_ fighting three men in an olive grove, and you make sure he sees you win.

*

All the shame you felt upon Maximus’ return is wiped away when your father calls you to him that night. You go eagerly, knowing at once what awaits you: _He will name me his successor now._ All that you have wanted, all you have deserved all your life, is yours for the taking at last. Your mouth waters with the nearness of it.

You hear nothing of what your father says to you in greeting. You are giddy, impatient — “Are you ready to do your duty for Rome?” he asks you solemnly, and you grin: “Yes, Father.”

You lean in. You know what comes next, you can practically taste it.

“You will not be Emperor,” your father says.

You beam: you have not heard. Your exultant cry is ready to spill from your lips, and then you see him frown.

You check, go over his words. _You will not be Emperor._ A horror sets in.

“Which wiser, older man is to take my place?” you ask slowly, unwilling to believe it. Your heart pounds erratically in your ears; you feel ill.

When your father says Maximus’ name the heartbeat in your ears becomes a deafening roar. A taunt, then, some cruel trick of the gods: _will I never be free of him?_

Your father asks you something, and you respond without registering your words, and then you realise you are crying. You babble on and on like a child — you plead with him, you speak of your virtues (though you know in his eyes you have none); you are desperate and sobbing. You remember Capri like a stab in the chest, and you choke out, half-mad, “Even then it was as if you did not want me to be your son.”

Your father sighs, “Oh, Commodus,” and you weep all the harder. Your great father, your Caesar, kneels to you then, and tells you softly, his voice broken by tears, that _your failure as a son is my failure as a father._ You take him in your arms and you weep, the both of you.

Some understanding, some plan begins to form dimly through the fog in your mind.

“I would butcher the whole world if only you would love me!” you cry aloud in passion. Anger rises in you, and you are blind, and yet you know exactly what you need to do. _The gods will guide my hand._

*

It is late, it is dark. You are the emperor now: your father is dead, you have killed him. _Hail Caesar._

In the tent, in the confused aftermath — you pretend to weep, your sister does not have to — Maximus is there. He is harried, he suspects you. You offer your hand: you make it clear you will not offer it again.

He will not take it. _So the lines are drawn._

You order his execution.

“Kill his family, too.”

They tell you he wept when they told him his wife and son were dead. You smile at the thought of terror in his eyes. _At last. At last I will be free._

*

But he lives. The bastard _lives._

He escaped, they tell you. You have his guards (the few remaining ones, those he did not manage to kill) executed in his stead. You weep in frustration; your head hurts. You hate him — oh, how you _hate_ him.

Lucilla comforts you, mixes a tonic to soothe you. You lie down next to her and lay your head on her shoulder. You feel a desperate emptiness.

“Will you stay with me?” you ask.

She laughs quietly, she teases you: “Still afraid of the dark?” she asks softly.

You tell her, _always,_ and ask again.

“Will you stay with me tonight?”

“You know I won’t,” she says, and you do know, of course you do, but that does not stop you from trying. You cannot bear to be alone tonight: he is inside your head, you will go mad if you are alone tonight.

“Then kiss me.”

You reach for her, you nearly touch her face, her lips: her lips which have touched his cheek, his lips. She lifts her hands to your face and firmly moves your head, brushes a kiss to your forehead. You close your eyes and sink back. You have never been more tired in your life.

“Sleep, brother.” She is gone, and you are left behind.

*

The gladiator takes off his mask and you think this has to be a nightmare. You thought you were rid of him once and for all. The last you heard, he had been captured and sold as a slave; you thought for certain he had died by now, was rotting in the sun-baked wasteland of Zucchabar.

But here he is, returning like a cancer: Maximus.

The crowd is chanting “Live! Live! Live!”

They love him. You could kill him now; they would turn on you. You cannot have them hate you.

So you will play the part they want to see. You are the predator, he is the prey, but you will show him and all of Rome that you can be merciful, you _will_ be merciful. You gesture for silence.

Your arm shakes as you raise it; your hand trembles as you turn up your thumb and grant him his life. You stare at him and you hate him, and then you stalk out of the arena, the jubilant roar of the crowd echoing miserably in your ears.

*

You give the command: Tigris of Gaul is to die. Maximus raises his axe — and then lowers it, tosses it aside. The crowd roars; they cannot believe it, they love him all the more for it. _Maximus the Merciful._

 “Are we so different, you and I?” you ask of him, as the arena crowd watches with bated breath. “You take life when you have to, as I do.”

He looks down on you, as he did when you were children. His voice is steel as he says “I have one more life to take. Then it is done.”

*

Whispers, secrets; shadows and dust. This is how the news of your sister’s betrayal comes, in the dead of night, to you. You learn that she, along with Senator Gracchus and —  _who else? —_ Maximus are plotting to kill you.

At first you laugh. A woman, a useless politician and a _slave,_ who lives now in your prison cell — they think to murder _you,_ Commodus, Caesar and the light of Rome?

But the messenger’s face is solemn, and he trembles, and you realise that this spy speaks the truth.

It sinks in like poison through your veins. You shake: you feel your face grow hot, contort with rage. You throw a silver cup at the spy and you scream in utter frustration. He leaves the room running, and you are alone with your disbelief, your fury.

_Of course. Of course. She will always choose him._

*

By the next morning it is finished: you have halted their pathetic scheme; you are safe. You stand looking out at the sky with Lucilla frozen in fear behind you.

“And what of my nephew and his mother?” you ask airily of an invisible crowd, as if you were an actor in some Livian play — as if you were the mob of Rome, deciding the fate of a gladiator slave. “Should they share her lover’s fate, or should I be merciful?”

You like the sound of it: _Commodus the Merciful._

_And he will be forgotten._

_Not by her,_ whispers a voice inside your head. _She loved him then. She loves him still. She will remember._

The old familiar hatred — the memory of Maximus and her, of Capri — surges in your chest: you feel it seep into your heart and harden it to stone, to steel.

“You will love me as I loved you,” you say now to your sister, all trace of jesting gone. “You will provide me with an heir of pure blood so that Commodus and his progeny will rule for a thousand years,” you say, your voice shaking. “Am I not _merciful?”_ you ask Lucilla, and your blood boils in your veins.

She does not respond.

You swoop down, make to kiss her rashly. She turns away. Rage swells in you and you force her face back to yours. You shout:

“ _Am I not merciful?!”_

You always hated to see your sister cry.

*

The bowels of the Colosseum.

“You would fight me?” Maximus challenges you. He is chained in front of you, he is a slave — and still he mocks you. You will be rid of him soon, but it will never be soon enough.

“Do you think I am _afraid?”_   You spit the word at him.

“I think you have been afraid all your life.”

 _Stupid man, he has just signed his own death warrant._ You laugh in his face.

“Unlike Maximus, the invincible, who knows no fear?” you taunt him.

His laugh is harsh. He tells you of a friend who told him that _Death smiles at us all, and all a man can do is smile back._ You don’t care. You don’t want him to die smiling; you want him to die twisted in agony. _Soon._

“I wonder,” you say lightly, “did your friend smile at his own death?” You are toying with him, enjoying yourself.

His next words stop you in your tracks.

“You must know. He was your father.”

A blow. You pause. You are seeing red: you want him dead _now_ , you nearly lunge at him, you can picture him falling limp to the floor; and then all your troubles will be over.

You speak again, your voice low and dripping with poison. _Soon, soon, soon_. “You loved my father, I know — but so did I. That makes us brothers, doesn’t it?” You lean close to him.

“Smile for me now, _brother_.”

You embrace him. In one fluid movement your dagger is in your hand and then in his chest. He gasps, his eyes locked on yours, and you read shock and terror there. You smile; you think of him and Lucilla together and your smile widens with the bloodstain on his tunic. One final insult: you kiss him on the neck, just once, like a lover.

You thought maybe you loved him once. You see now you were right, and this will make his death all the sweeter.

To Quintus: “Strap on his armour. Conceal the wound.”

*

He holds you close as he sinks the sword into your throat. You look into his eyes as he kills you.

Your own blood is choking you, you fall to your knees; your pristine white armour turns scarlet. He looks at you and there is sorrow in his eyes. It shocks you. He opens his mouth to say something —  _I’m sorry? Forgive me? —_  but nothing comes out. _Nothing to say. All this time, and nothing to say._

His face is the last thing you see.

You will never know that he follows you into death.

_Are we so different, you and I?_

*

**Author's Note:**

> The film doesn't correspond _exactly_ with history, and in turn this fic doesn't correspond _exactly_ with either the film or with history. Most notably, Commodus and Lucilla's ages have been slightly changed — they are older here than they were in real life, in keeping with their portrayals in the film. Also, Commodus was co-ruling with his father for the three years prior to Marcus Aurelius' death; but as this is not mentioned in the film — and for simplicity and dramatic effect — I've omitted that here.
> 
> Also omitted are Lucilla's second marriage and the birth of her son Pompeianus, both occuring before her involvement in the conspiracy. Her son Lucius Verus died as a young child, but seeing as how he features prominently in the film I've changed that. Roughly all the post-Capri dialogue is lifted directly from the film, and I can take no credit for it, or for the characters as portrayed in the film.
> 
> Bonus fun fact, which I didn't know when I began writing this fic: Lucilla was in fact banished to Capri, and died there, after the plot to execute Commodus was discovered. Fearful symmetry. ;)


End file.
